Toyota Going 100% Hybrid By 2020

autofan1 writes "Toyota's vice president in charge of powertrain development, Masatami Takimoto, has said cost cutting on the electric motor, battery and inverter were all showing positive results in reducing the costs of hybrid technology and that by the time Toyota's sales goal of one million hybrids annually is reached, it 'expect margins to be equal to gasoline cars.' Takimoto also made the bold claim that by 2020, hybrids will be the standard drivetrain and account for '100 percent' of Toyota's cars as they would be no more expensive to produce than a conventional vehicle."

Comments

All Cars or Trucks Too?

[WrongSizeGlass]

Takimoto also made the bold claim that by 2020, hybrids will be the standard drivetrain and account for '100 percent' of Toyota's cars as they would be no more expensive to produce than a conventional vehicle. 100% is a lofty goal. Is that just cars or does it include trucks & SUV's too?

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[Charcharodon]

Actually an electric drive train on trucks and SUV's would be more desireable than your typical transmission that we've had for the last 40-50 years. Electric motors make the most torque at zero RPMs for much better load/towing. There is also once they make the switch to independently powered wheels (an electric motor built into the wheel) you could have much more interesting steering suspension options since there would be no drive shafts getting in the way.

As far as they've said they mean all their vehicles will have hybrid drivetrains. The only sad thing is going to be our grandkids asking us what it means to drive "stick".

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with in wheel motors is that they have a really high un-sprung weight. This means that on bumps, the momentum that the wheel/motor has will be hard to stop with a shock absorber and thus the tire will lift off the ground resulting in poor cornering / braking and a rough and noisy ride. Having an individual motor for each wheel mounted to the car's frame that has a small axle to the wheel is required for decent performance.

in hub motors are bad, unless they are really light, like around 4-8kg.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[kevinx]

I remember Mazda making a statement about all their cars being rotory engines back in the 80's. Didn't happen. A lot can change in another 13 years, it's quite possible that effiencies in other areas work their way into production much quicker than the path to cheap hybrids. Granted, forward looking statements should to be taken with a grain of salt as they typically don't pan out. This was probably just ment to bring warm fuzzies to all the eco friendly people out there, as well as stock holders who want to know that their company has a clear vision for the future and will continue to be a leader in automotive innovation.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[zippthorne]

One can only hope. Driving can be fun, but commuting isn't. I'd just as soon nap as anything on the freeway. If I lived in a place where public transportation were an option, I'd use that. And no, I don't think that "A bus goes by every hour (peak) and every two-three hours (off-peak)" is "an option" for anyone that doesn't want to waste between 45 minutes and 2.5 hours at each end of the commute. It's not even a good alternative for drunks since service inexplicably ends an hour and a half before last call.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[goombah99]

Hybrids will need to evolve and differentiate for use I think. As you observe, for truck usage involving low torque driving patterns-- e.g. off road, construction, factory and warehouse, applications--hybrids are better engines than gasoline. But for long haul trucking the advantages are less clear. Diesels may be quite effective there. And future generation of spark plug engines or plasma combustion will probably beat diesels.

There are engine technologies that exist now that are as good as hybrids and more versatile. For example 8 cyllinder engines that can shut down 4 cyllinders. Recent advances in experimental engines show enormous opportunities for gains using imogeneous fuel-air mixtures, pre-heated fuel, and better spark timing.

Now one might argue that anything that makes an engine more efficient could be turned around and applied to a hybrid engine, so hybrids should always win. But this sort of depends upon two other issues. is there a coupling loss at the point where the electric and mechanical power trains meet? Is the gasoline portion so low on peak torque or horsepower that it must store energy (at a large conversion loss) in the electric system to satisfy the power excursions out of it's narrow power band? IN such cases direct drives might be better. Conversely, perhaps being able to shut down the engine entirely in low use and idling situation will more gas. Finally going all electric and disposing of the engines might make sense for solar powered short range commuter cars.

Anyhow, I can see that hybrids are a good idea, but one has to imagine a range of different kinds of hybrids optimized for different usage patterns.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[Charcharodon]

Right back at you Eighnstien. If it has an electric drive train, then yes it does mean no stick, other than maybe stop, forward and backwards. You are correct though they could create a gas/electric hybrid that has a typical standard/automatic drive train. When they say hybrid it could be any of a variety of configurations.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[pebs]

If it has an electric drive train, then yes it does mean no stick, other than maybe stop, forward and backwards. You are correct though they could create a gas/electric hybrid that has a typical standard/automatic drive train. When they say hybrid it could be any of a variety of configurations.

The Honda Insight and the earlier Honda Civic had manual transmissions. Of course that is an "assist" type hybrid and does not run on the electric motor alone. Those options are no longer available in the Civic, and the Insight has been discontinued. We'll see if they reintroduce these options in the future.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[packeteer]

A bicycle works pretty good for me for commuting. I know that it wont work for everyone but I think most people could do it. It is good for you to get exercise, it is good for the environment not to use a car. Your metabolism shoots up all day when you exercise in the morning, you have more energy all day. Also our road capacity is being overwhelmed, many more bikes can fit on roads than cars.

Also I know someone wants to reply and say that bikes are slow but its just not true. I go much faster than cars on the freeway during rush hour.

Also bikes are cheaper to buy and maintain, by a LOT.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[Charcharodon]

Energy lose from generator to battery typically for most systems is around 10-20%, it really depends on what you are working with, but where hybrids make it up is they recapture 3-60% of the energy back through regenative breaking. This is why typically a hybrid gets much better gas mileage in the city than on the highway. Again it depends on the kind of hybrid it is. The other big advantage is that the motor is controlled by a computer which keeps it running in one of several power bands where it is at it's most efficient state.

The marketing efforts for customer education along with all the fanboy and hater noise as typical has made a complete mess of the publics understand as too what exactly is a hybrid.

All hybrid means is that it has more than one type of motor. It doesn't really have anything to do with how it transfers the mechanical energy about or even how it creates it. You could have a turbine (jet engine) internal combustion engine pair in a car (A.K.A. the Batmobile) and it would considered a hybrid too, a very cool, very bad-ass hybrid, but still a hybrid.

So lets go with an example that most people would be familiar with. Both the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight are hybrids, but they are really very little alike on how they go about it.

A Toyota Prius is a gas assisted electric car. The electric motor drives the wheels and the gas motor powers the batteries. On the other hand a Honda Insight was a electric assisted gas driven car. The gas motor drove the drive train and the electric motor kicked in with saved up breaking energy on the take off.

The neat thing is that most people don't understand is that for all intensive purposes a hybrid like the Prius is actually an electric car. It does not need the gasoline engine to get around. So if they ever decided to they could make the cars power cells and power plants modular things could get really interesting and mostly likely very confusing.

Want to be able to drive it all the time without stopping, get the big combustion engine.

Want to be completely electric forgo the engine and get a bigger battery pack with a wall charger.

Want something in between, get a much smaller engine (one that fits the strict polution requirements for your city) with the solar panel option. The motor would be big enough to help rechare the batteries but not large enough to actually propel the car along.

Really all the hybrid craze means is we are now on the verge of having truely customizeable cars where upgrading your engine really means that all you have to do is disconnect it from it's mounts and unplug it.

A little hybrid trivia: NASCAR actually put a ban out a few years ago because some clever mechanics worked out how to use the electric starters on the cars to squeak out a few extra horsepower to gain a small but very real advantage over other cars.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[Moofie]

"forcing consumers to pay outrageous repair fees"

Or to, you know, learn something.

Look, the guys at the dealership aren't superhuman. They're mechanics, who have learned the new skills to work on newer cars. It's not rocket science. Are the skills different? Yes. Do they require PhD-level intellect? No. Are the tools impossible to obtain? No.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[zippthorne]

Yeah I did the bicycle thing for a bit. It worked really well when the one-way commute was only three and a half miles. I'm not sure I'm patient enough to do much further than twice that though.

I think the main barrier to bicycling though is that it's not considered at all when building roads, so you end up with roads with no shoulder, and maybe a sidewalk. Neither option is really safe for a daily commute. (although the second is safe for the cyclist...) There really needs to be a grade-separated bicycle lane, at least for main roads. I think more people would bike if they weren't putting their lives in their hands every time they did.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[tbo]

Also our road capacity is being overwhelmed, many more bikes can fit on roads than cars.

I am a big bike fan and don't own a car, so please don't take this the wrong way, but what you're saying is potentially somewhat misleading (unintentionally, I know). Yes, more bikes can fit on the road than cars, but the capacity of most bikes is 1, versus 5 for most cars. Bikes also have a much lower top speed, so the potential "flux" of bicyclists is lower than that for driver/passengers for the same density of "seats".

Consider a freeway flowing smoothly with moderately heavy traffic. The amount of road space occupied by one car (including the gap behind it) could comfortably hold maybe 12 bikes. If a typical cyclist averages 20 mph, versus 60 mph for cars on this idealized freeway, and each car contains 4 people, then the flux (number passing a given point per unit time) of cyclists is the same as that of car commuters.

I have of course made all sorts of assumptions in favor of the cars here--most commuters don't carpool, freeways often get congested and slow, and there are a lot of places where freeways aren't available. Obviously cycling beats the current reality of single-occupant vehicles stuck in traffic. My point is just that a well-designed carpool/vanpool system can actually be competitive with cycling in terms of road efficiency.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[nasch]

A Toyota Prius is a gas assisted electric car. The electric motor drives the wheels and the gas motor powers the batteries. Actually in Toyota's HSD the gas engine is connected to an electric motor-generator. I don't fully understand everything on the WP page, but it's not like the gas engine drives an alternator which charges the batteries, while the batteries discharge to power the motors. The ICE is connected directly to one of the electric motors.

And just for some pedantic fun, it's "braking energy" not "breaking energy", and "all intents and purposes" not "all intensive purposes". The latter seems like a fairly common mistake.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[joshv]

Where the heck do you live? I've never seen anywhere (except for Germany) where pedestrians obey walk signals.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[HUADPE]

Personally, I'd like an all electric drivetrain with a gas motor to provide electricity. Then you could eliminate the need for a transmission entirely.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[AaronW]

I was talking with a friend of mine who works at Tesla motors and he said the same thing. A motor in each wheel adds too much mass there and makes the suspension far more difficult to deal with, plus having to properly split the power between different wheels. Basically it's simpler and cheaper to just use a centralized motor like a conventional car, which also gives better performance. Generally for performance you want to lower the mass as much as possible in the wheels since this reduces the angular momentum in the wheels and makes it much more responsive to bumps and other imperfections in the road surface.

I could see adding a smaller motor for the front and a larger motor in the rear, since the best acceleration comes from the rear, but front or all wheel drive is advantageous in some circumstances (i.e. driving in snow) and could provide even better regenerative braking support. (I.e. the front motor could be optimized as an alternator/generator while the rear one is optimized to provide power to the wheels).

Sure, a motor in each wheel would allow for some really creative designs, but it's not very practical due to the added weight, suspension, cost and complexity involved.

Also, in general, a single larger motor will be more efficient than two or four smaller motors, and is easier to add support for liquid cooling, power, etc. Having exposed high voltage wires to each wheel would be a reliability problem as well as a safety problem as well. Many hybrid motors run at well over 400 volts with multi-phase power and a lot of amps. Having this confined within the chassis means shorter wires, so less losses, less EMF, and better safety.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Parent post is not flamebait; it is an accurate description of the road behavior of many, many bicyclists. I don't know how many times I've passed a bicyclist on the street, carefully taking all the precautions I would take when passing any slow-moving vehicle (slowing down, moving as far as possible to the left, only settling back into my lane when I'm sure I've passed completely, etc.) and then stopped at a red light a block or two down ... only to have the bicyclist come zooming past me, right through the red light, and have to repeat the whole process a little way past the light. And this can go on for light after light, seriously slowing down traffic and greatly increasing the chances of an accident somewhere along the line. Mention this to most bicyclists, though, and get ready for an earful of self-righteous rage.

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[Doppler00]

U.S. cities are inherently designed to be anti-pedestrian (err... pro car). From my own experience: very limited bike lanes, narrow sidewalks, traffic lights that never turn green for bicyclists, freeways that divide a city in half so you have to ride an extra FIVE MILES to get to the other side, neighborhood streets and homes that block logical straight through paths so you have to ride around to get to the other side, forced zoning laws that place industry/commerce tens of miles from residential. Just to name a few complaints.

This "problem" won't be solved until either gas is $10/gallon or we move to some kind of lighter transportation vehicles as the standard. Not likely to happen in my lifetime though...

Re:All Cars or Trucks Too?

[Abcd1234]

Actually, as a cyclist, I couldn't agree more. It's those exact, dick moves that get cyclists into accidents. Fact is, if you're on the road, you follow the same rules a car does. That means stopping at red lights, not passing on the shoulder, etc. Unfortunately, you're also right, in that most cyclists have no fucking clue what it means to be polite and respectful of their fellow commuters.

Sole automobile transmission is a hybrid in 2020?

[SpzToid]

Isn't this a bit like the current market leader placing its eggs all in one (hybrid) basket? I welcome the rebel fighters willing to tackle the status quo. Hybrid is neat tech, but still. It isn't the be all, end all solution.

- - -

every bicycle is green

Disappointed.

[Anonymous Freak]

I'd actually like to see them commit to alternative fuels more. "100% hybrid" isn't good enough for me. 100% hybrid by 2010 would be nice, with a move to embrace other fuels by 2020.

Of course, he didn't say gas hybrid. Diesel hybrids would be nice; and this doesn't exclude plug-in hybrids, which have more utility than pure electric vehicles. And, in some strange way, you could consider a fuel cell/battery car to be a hybrid, even though the actual drivetrain is 100% electric. But some pure electric vehicles would be nice (bring back the RAV4-EV!) as would other alternative fuels.

That's a scary thought

[jfengel]

Somehow, I'd hoped that 13 years from now we'd be all electric, or otherwise not tied permanently to OPEC's apron strings. Hybrids are a nice improvement, but they're not exactly flying cars or solar power.

I suppose in Car Industry terms, 13 years isn't all that far off. I suspect that a car model is perhaps 5 to 7 years in the making, or longer for a really radical redesign.

But to think that I'll be turning 50 and cars will still be burning plain old gasoline, with only a moderate improvement in performance over right now... that makes me depressed.

Re:That's a scary thought

[ASBands]

You are absolutely correct: this graph shows the average miles per gallon of all vehicles in the United States. It is extremely telling that the graph is practically level since the mid 80s. To think that we haven't gained any more knowledge of engines is ridiculous - we should be improving fuel-efficiency standards, but we're not.

To address the GP, I recall reading somewhere that if the average vehicle got 28 miles per gallon (the actual number is between 25 and 30), we would not have to import a drop of oil from OPEC. Even if hybrids get only 50 mpg, the demand for fuel would decrease substantially. Furthermore, the technology that goes into hybrid vehicles could easily improve (it's a relatively new technology).

Re:That's a scary thought

[buraianto]

To be fair, cars these days have more airbags, emissions control hardware, traction control, etc. than cars in the mid 80s. That extra weight to carry around wherever you go.

Hmm...

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Well, according to the story from yesterday, I believe, the MPG of hybrids was actually incorrect, and was over-estimating the average MPG by more than 10mpg. Meaning the Prius not only looks pretty ugly, but it gets slightly better mileage than my Honda Civic which isn't hybrid. Plus, I don't have to worry about disposing of batteries ($$$) and replacing the batteries (more $$$).

Re:Hmm...

[esampson]

From Toyota's own site (http://www.toyota.com/about/environment/technolog y/2004/hybrid.html)

How long does the Prius battery last and what is the replacement cost?

The Prius battery (and the battery-power management system) has been designed to maximize battery life. In part this is done by keeping the battery at an optimum charge level - never fully draining it and never fully recharging it. As a result, the Prius battery leads a pretty easy life. We have lab data showing the equivalent of 180,000 miles with no deterioration and expect it to last the life of the vehicle. We also expect battery technology to continue to improve: the second-generation model battery is 15% smaller, 25% lighter, and has 35% more specific power than the first. This is true of price as well. Between the 2003 and 2004 models, service battery costs came down 36% and we expect them to continue to drop so that by the time replacements may be needed it won't be a much of an issue. Since the car went on sale in 2000, Toyota has not replaced a single battery for wear and tear.

So it isn't as though you will be replacing the battery every few years. 7 years without a single replacement makes me suspect that if you bought a new Prius now the battery would last on average at least 10 to 15 years (since the batteries being installed now are even better than those installed 7 years ago).

Also because of Toyota's battery recycling program paying $200 per battery (though I expect that would drop as the cost of the batteries get lower) you won't, or at least shouldn't, have any form of disposal charge.

Re:Hmm...

[SnowZero]

...and your Civic isn't a bomb on wheels waiting to go off should the battery compartment be intruded upon by another vehicle. Since when have NiMH batteries been explosive? They are just about the safest battery around (better than the lead-acid, certainly). Would you feel safer with a larger gas tank in its place? I'm not a Prius owner, but this is just FUD.

Re:Hmm...

[sunspot42]

Your Civic is a LOT safer than the Prius

Source, please. According to Consumer Reports, in US Government testing the Prius did better in all regards than most cars in its class, with excellent driver side impact performance. In no way, shape or form is the Civic a "lot" safer than a Prius.

has significantly more performance

Source, please. The Civic automatic sedan does 0-30 in 3.6 seconds and 0-60 in 10.1 seconds. It does 45-65mph in 6.0 seconds. The Prius does 0-30 in 3.7 seconds, and 0-60 in 10.5. The Prius goes 45-65 in 6.4 seconds. Virtually identical performance, and the Prius is a larger car with more interior volume and a much quieter ride than the Civic.

and your Civic isn't a bomb on wheels waiting to go off should the battery compartment be intruded upon by another vehicle

Source, please. I haven't seen any reports regarding a Prius going up in smoke. Frankly, I'd be a lot more worried about the gas tank in either car than the batteries. Gasoline vapors are far more likely to explode than any battery.

Re:Hmm...

[MojoRilla]

Well, if you had actually read yesterday's article, you would have seen that the mileage estimate on your regular civic has also dropped. The Prius combined estimate dropped 16%, while the non hybrid Civic dropped 12%. Even after the milage drop, the Prius still gets 58% better combined fuel economy than your Civic (46 mpg vs. 29 mpg combined).

Of course, these are just estimates, and your mileage may vary.

Re:What the Japanese don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

"What the Japanese don't understand" is a hilarios way to start any sentence about automobiles. There are things that Japan has been getting right for over 20 years that GM still hasn't learned.

Re:Batteries

[esampson]

From Toyota's own website (http://www.toyota.com/about/environment/technolog y/2004/hybrid.html)

Is there a recycling plan in place for nickel-metal hydride batteries?

Toyota has a comprehensive battery recycling program in place and has been recycling nickel-metal hydride batteries since the RAV4 Electric Vehicle was introduced in 1998. Every part of the battery, from the precious metals to the plastic, plates, steel case and the wiring, is recycled. To ensure that batteries come back to Toyota, each battery has a phone number on it to call for recycling information and dealers are paid a $200 "bounty" for each battery.

So I suppose that yes, they will have a battery recycling program in place since it is doubtful they would discontinue their current one.

Before this happens...

[CaptainPatent]

I would really like to see Toyota build a car that is identical to a current hybrid and find the costs associated with the vehicle including:
1) The money saved in the design by not having the electrical engine, battery, extra alternator system
2) The added vehicle life (if any) by not having extra parts to fail.
3) A more realistic estimate of the gas money saved under the new, more realistic mileage ratings
4)The additional cost of disposing batteries from the hybrid upon the hybrids end

I feel that we still may have been too quick to jump on the bandwagon with hybrids. Air pollution is reduced overall, but the added cost of the electrical engine may not make up for the forgone cost of gas. Additionally, how good is it going to be to have a mound of spent batteries laying around in landfills?
Let's see some data before such a large move is made.

GM Pledges to have a hybrid vehicle by 2020!

[RingDev]

GM today announced plans to begin planning the development of a new hybrid platform. A GM executive was quoted saying "Toyota has really got a jump on this whole 'hybrid' thing, but we're on it!" The new platform, due out in 13 years is expected to compete against the current Prius. Only time will tell if this risky endeavor will be a wise one.

-Rick

What a dreadful idea

[ronanbear]

Hybrids are only more efficient for certain forms of driving. For cruising at motorway speeds the hybrid is just extra weight lowering efficiency. Improvements in diesel engines might well outpace hybrid technology.

Why would anyone wants to do this? It actually doesn't make any sense. 100% of cars represents a lot of recycling and a lot of cost (and pollution) in expired and leaking batteries.

A hybrid can't make an engine more efficient. It just makes it more efficient over certain parts of the power band. Unless they redefine hybrid to mean starter-alternator with minimal power assist there are going to be a lot of cars that don't see any gain. Incidentally I do think every car will (and should) have a starter-alternator in that timescale.

Other improvements in engine technology are negating the need for a hybrid motor at all. Going back to the Honda Insight the original hybrid: it doubled the milage of a Civic. 35% was due to exotic materials, aerodynamics, reduced rolling resistance; 35% was due to a more efficient engine and the last 30% was due to the expensive hybrid drivetrain.

By all means hybrids should become more popular, even more popular than conventionally powered but full replacement is based more on dogma and marketing than sound engineering reasons.

Re:What a dreadful idea

[Control Group]

The real win of hybrids isn't the drivetrain, it's rengenerative braking. Storing kinetic energy rather than dissipating it as heat is an obvious efficiency win, since you're presumably going to stop moving at some point.

Really, the other efficiencies of hybrids are side effects of regenerative braking - once you've got an infrastructure in the car to store kinetic energy and subsequently deliver it to the wheels, you might as well use that infrastructure to improve the running efficiency as much as possible.

Now, it's possible that for current hybrids, the overhead incurred by including that infrastructure outweighs the gains of regenerative braking for some driving profiles, but there's no reason to think that will always be the case, since that's an engineering problem, not a physics one.

Other things equal, vehicles with regenerative braking will always be more fuel-efficient than vehicles without. The challenge is to make other things equal.

Re:What a dreadful idea

[Chirs]

"Other things equal, vehicles with regenerative braking will always be more fuel-efficient than vehicles without."

That's only true if you are actually braking.

Driving long stretches on the highway there is no braking involved and air resistance is high. You are limited by the power of the gas engine (because you'd drain your battery if you tried to use it continually), so most of the time the weight of the electric portion is a disadvantage.

The real advantage of the hybrid is where there is frequent braking involved and speeds are relatively slow. Stop-and-go city traffic, for instance.

Re:What a dreadful idea

[djmurdoch]

Driving long stretches on the highway there is no braking involved and air resistance is high. You are limited by the power of the gas engine (because you'd drain your battery if you tried to use it continually), so most of the time the weight of the electric portion is a disadvantage.

At constant speeds weight doesn't matter. It's only when you're accelerating that you pay the cost of the weight, and (in a hybrid) you recover some of it when you brake.

At constant highway speeds you don't need a lot of power from your engine, so having a small gas engine (like a hybrid) gives better efficiency than having a great big engine which is hardly being used at all.

Re:What a dreadful idea

[ArsonSmith]

Unless you drive the exact same speed on perfectly flat ground for the entire trip what you are saying isn't true.

It is more than just regenerative braking. Every time you slow from 75 to 70 then speed back up, the hybrid engine will help. Need to pass that slow poke in a hurry? stomp the gas pedal and the hybrid will assist you in speeding up, get pass him and the recharge cycle will kick in to recoup some of the waste used to speed up in the first place.

Re:What a dreadful idea

[AaronW]

You are mistaken. My Prius routinely uses its electric motor at freeway speeds, alternating between charging the battery or supplementing the gasoline engine while driving a steady speed on a flat highway. The only limitation above 42MPH is that the gasoline engine must also turn to prevent one of the motors from spinning too fast. The electric motor will often assist the gasoline engine at freeway (and above) speeds. This is clearly visible on the display. When driving up a steep grade the electric motor certainly kicks in as I can see the battery charge drop at freeway speeds. When accelerating to overtake another vehicle the electric motor almost always kicks in to assist.

Re:What a dreadful idea

[toddestan]

At constant speeds weight doesn't matter. It's only when you're accelerating that you pay the cost of the weight, and (in a hybrid) you recover some of it when you brake.

That's true as air resistance goes, but the extra weight is going to increase the friction between the car and the road (not to mention the internal friction in the car between the wheels and the rest of the car), so the extra weight will drop your economy a bit.

Re:Sole automobile transmission is a hybrid in 202

[Reverend528]

If the other car manufacturers are smart, they'll build less fuel efficient cars. Then by 2020, there will be no more gas and Toyota's invesment in hybrids will be useless.

Hybrids can be better at highway speeds too

[dfoulger]

Your assumption that hybrids are "dead weight" at highway speeds is wrong. I get my best hybrid mileage on the highway (often at or over 70 MPG). It doesn't have to be that way. A hybrid designed for torque rather than economy might now do any better than a standard engine at highway speeds, but a hybrid designed for economy rather than torque (like my Honda Insight) does.

Re:Hybrids can be better at highway speeds too

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that 70MPG for a brief period of time (i.e, going downhill) or 70MPG average for the whole trip? Either way, the good highway mileage is more likely due to low-rolling-resistance tires and good aerodynamics, and not really from the hybrid powertrain (which is just dead weight when traveling at a constant speed)

If you were to hypothetically take a prius, rip out its electric motor and battery pack, and tinker with the internal combustion engine so it gives its maximum efficiency @ 60mph - You'd end up with a car that would have even *better* highway MPG than before.

Re:Hybrids can be better at highway speeds too

[evilviper]

Your assumption that hybrids are "dead weight" at highway speeds is wrong.

No, it's exactly correct.

I get my best hybrid mileage on the highway (often at or over 70 MPG).

Mileage, yes. "Hybrid," no. Your car's hybrid system (electric motor/generator) shuts off at 35MHz, and can't possibly help your gas mileage, in any way, above that speed.

Re:Hybrids can be better at highway speeds too

[dfoulger]

You are clearly thinking Prius rather than Insight. The Insight's electric motor/generator operates at all speeds above 20 MPH (and under some conditions under 20MPH). When I reach highway speeds and feather back on the accelerator to match the speed I want to go (usually the same as the traffic around me), the electric motor draws on the batteries on uphills and charges it whenever the power output of the engine exceeds the power required to maintain speed. There are many ways to design a hybrid drivetrain. Some, like the Prius, are optimized to give great mileage in the city and don't significantly improve on that mileage on the highway. Some, like the Insight, give great mileage on the highway and merely good mileage in the city. Others improve performance at the expense of mileage. I know. I own one and have tested most of them.

0% Zero Emissions

[Doc Ruby]

So Toyota will sell no all-electric or other "zero emissions" cars in 2020? No H2 or fuelcell vehicles? Hybrids are better than simple internal combustion engines, but not good enough. Has Toyota and the car industry just figured out that they can avoid the really big change away from gasoline just by getting us all to go "ooh, hybrids - that's good"?

Re:0% Zero Emissions

[AK Marc]

All-electric will not happen as long as people like to take long trips. I can go from zero-power to 400 mile range in under 5 minutes in a gasoline car. An all-electric vehicle attempting the same feat would need to either swap batteries or pass current capable of running a small town.

No H2 or fuelcell vehicles?

You seem to have a reading comprehension problem. There was nothing stated that it would be an all-gasoline fleet. It would just be an all-hybrid fleet. That is, even if H2 or fuel cells were cheap and available, they would still have the regenerative braking, electric assist, and batteries of a current gasoline hybrid. The costs will be so low that there will be no single-source engine more efficient than a hybrid. Or, to ask another way, why would you waste H2 by not using regenerative braking? Why do you think hydrogen would not work with hybrids?

Big deal!

[cashman73]

I'm still waiting for my Mr. Fusion , that will enable me to power my vehicle on ordinary household garbage! After all, it's the only power source that's capable of generating the 1.21 Gigawatts of electricity necessary to run the Flux Capacitor in my DeLorean! ;-)

Toyota does not make cars

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've ever driven Toyota you should know that it doesn't make cars, it makes lifeless soulless appliances, sort of fridges and sofas on wheals.
That's why going hybrid will not damage its qualities.
Sorry Toyota, in my 30s I'm not old enough to drive your vacuum cleaners

Re:Toyota does not make cars

[MarcoAtWork]

that works for me, when I need to drive from point a to point b I don't want my car to factor in the equation: I don't think about my fridge day after day, polishing it, cleaning the freezer section, lubing the door handles, having to take it in for service multiple times a year because its compressor has yet again broken down. Yeah, it can freeze my leftovers to -120C in 20 seconds, but when am I ever going to be able to use all that cooling power given that most things I eat can do just fine at -10/-15C?

My fridge serves my needs, keeping my food fresh, just like my car serves my needs, going from point a to point b as safely and as worry-free as possible, hence why I drive a toyota: because outside of taking it in for maintenance every 5,000 miles it's just like another appliance, reliable, efficient, and that does what I need with a minimum of fuss.

prepare for renewed onslaught of hydrogen power

[Locutus]

marketing pieces. I think it was a GM executive who released a public statement that hybrids were bad because it distracted attention from the real future, hydrogen fuelcell vehicles. Oh, and he chose to release this the same week that Toyota invited the press to see the Prius built on the same productionline as 4 other cars. Not being custom built in some special production facility.

Go Toyota, show em how its done. Can you believe that the US had actually started working on hybrid vehicle in 1993? Yup, but good ole George Dubya Bush terminated government backing/involvement once he/Dick created the hydrogen program?

LoB

Re:I'm sorry but

[ect5150]

Maybe because batteries can be recycled? http://www.batteryrecycling.com/

In related news...

[vought]

GM, Chrysler and Ford announce that they'll transition to "thinking about possibly getting some of those battery-rechargey cars" into production by 2015.

Re:In related news...

[Blkdeath]

Actually, the license is to avoid patent disputes. Ford uses their own tech. Think of it as avoiding 1-Click lawsuits. GM in the meantime only currently offers partial hybrids, and Chrysler has nothing.

Partial points, but not quite accurate. Ford developed a hybrid system that was totally inefficient, so they scrapped it. They re-designed their system and found that, hey, this is almost identical to Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive. They licensed the technology from Toyota, tweaked their own production lines, and blam-o, we have a Hybrid Ford. Bring an Escape Hybrid to a Toyota dealership and they'll be perfectly suited to maintain it, save for the use the Ford's Duratec gasoline engine and other mechanical parts.

Re:Why wouldnt they?

[ciggieposeur]

And I guarantee my well-maintained Mustang will get better mileage than the banged-up Prius' I already see running around on half-inflated tires, alignment way off, etc, etc..

Wow, that's impressive. You're currently beating 40mpg in a Mustang?

Conservation alternative

[goombah99]

In the 12 years to 2020, we can reduce the consumption of net carbon releaseing fuels and import fuels far more by conservation than by alternative energy. THere is no way we could provide 20% of our petroleum fuels from alternatives by 2020. But we could very plausibly increase fleet efficiency by more than 25%. Indeed this magnitude drop already happened in a very short time following the carter administration rules. (and we have given back some of those gains in the intervening years). Additionally, alternative fuels are not benign. They transform solid carbon into C02. They do produce waste during production. They may devestate crop lands or oceans. Coal mining is hardly benign. Nuclear power has it's risks. Moreover expenses have ot be considered. If we are spending 5% more on fuels to produce alternatives, then that's 5% less on other things like health care or social security. US products cost more so Our GDP also declines. Alternatives could harm life span, and standard of living. Conservation is thus far more attractive.

Re: '100 percent' of Toyota's cars

[xealot]

Why not? The new Lexus 600h has a 5 litre V8 hybrid engine, so I don't see why they wouldn't put something similar in trucks designed for towing/4-wheeling. There's plenty of power/torque to be had from this kind of setup.

Then don't make it a cash bounty

[homer_ca]

They already do this. Many recyclable car parts have a "core" charge. It works like a bottle or can deposit. You either bring in the old battery when you buy a new one, or you pay the core charge and get it refunded if you bring back the old battery. Simple.

Re:Conservation alternative

[malsdavis]

"Additionally, alternative fuels are not benign."

I think this is an extremely important point. In the rush to limit the environmental damage caused by fossil fuels, it seems the environmental risks of some of the alternative fuel sources are being almost completely ignored. The potential environmental damage which widespread biofuel usage could cause is particularly scary.

Every single study has shown that the astronomical land requirements needed to produce biofuel crops on a scale for it to replace gas in the USA would require near enough all the existing farmland along with all the worlds remaining forests, rainforests and protected areas of nature (e.g. national parks) to be cleared and replaced with biofuel crops. The thought that this could be done in the name of the "saving the environment" is pretty baffling!

Toyota #1 car maker worldwide

[NeutronCowboy]

Since Toyota is beating GM worldwide, I think it's safe to say that there are some things that American car makers don't understand about making cars. Namely, that the current trend is away from huge street boats, quality matters, and you can't compete when you can barely make a profit on the product you sell.

Re:unsprung weight won't stop it

[Moofie]

"So the unsprung weight situation isn't definitely worse, and could sometimes be a bit better."

You think a 75 hp electric motor is going to be lighter than an axle? Your gravity is broken. Yes, I see your point. No, I don't think you're correct.

Re: '100 percent' of Toyota's cars

[DragonWriter]

That's great, except that their new cash cow is trucks. I don't think Tundras are included in that prediction.

Why not? Its not like there is something magic about "truck" that makes a hybrid drivetrain less useful, and Toyota already makes hybrid SUVs.

Re:Conservation alternative

[lgw]

If you think carbon release is important, coal is by far the place to focus your concern. America generates more CO2 from burning coal to produce electrical power than all the CO2 generated from all transportation combined. A lot of change could be made in 12 years (without asking anyone to lower their standard of living) by simply replacing coal-burning power plants.

Nuclear power may have it's risks, but those risks are well studied, and even if every single American nuclear power plant had a Three mile Island style meltdown all in the same year, the collective environmental impact would still be less than normal coal usage. (And of course modern nuclear power plant designs make that kind of meltdown physically impossible.)

Prius experience...

[dtjohnson]

After owning a 2006 Prius for a little over a year, I can say that a hybrid is about more than just miles per gallon. Yes, the mpg is good but that isn't the only good thing about them. Some other good things:

1) The electric/hybrid drive is nicer to drive in traffic because the electric drive makes it pull away from a stop much more cleanly and strongly than a non-hybrid drive with no revving-up motor.

2) The wear-and-tear stuff like like brake pads, mufflers, batteries, starter motors, clutch, transmission, starter motor, etc. is either gone or morphed into a much longer lifespan due to reduced wear. The only significant maintenance items on the Prius are oil changes and tire replacement.

3) The battery gives you a backup power source. I've already managed to run out of gas and the battery lets you keep on going for a couple of more miles to the freeway exit which was very cool.

4) The car can run a lot of electrical gear (if you get an inexpensive inverter) if you go car camping since it is basically a very quiet, efficient 60 hp generator. Toyota should offer an inverter option and a built-in outlet plug on the side for RV owners who tow one behind the RV.

5) The Prius is very cheap to drive.

6) The Prius has a very nice interior space layout (for a small car) with much more legroom than is typical thanks to its small transverse motor.

Re:Prius experience...

[terciops]

Agreed in full. I have owned a 2001 (series 2) Prius for 2.5 years now and apart from a new set of wiper blades and routine oil and filters it has required nothing spent on it at all - except fuel. I get ~1000kms between fill ups and it returns 20km/lt if driven hard and 22-25 km/lt in normal driving. My best tank mileage was 28 km/lt (see table to decode for non metric drivers). It is now on 103,000 kms total mileage (kilometrage ?) and is in perfect health. Tyre wear is better than normal and it still has the factory brake pads installed with 50% wear remaining. A remarkable car in all respects and an absolute joy to drive. Everything else I drive feels and sounds like an old clunker by comparison. Conversion from Km/Lt to MPG (US and UK) here - http://www.teaching-english-in-japan.net/conversio n/kilometers_per_liter/

Re:What the Japanese don't understand

[localman]

All that money for health care and pensions has to come from somewhere... so I'm guessing taxes are higher in Japan? Would GM, Ford, et al. prefer to pay that same money to the government? Maybe they would; I'm just saying that there's no free lunch.

Cheers.

Re:More likely hybrids will be gone by then.

[buraianto]

Hybrid sales have increased year over year in every month since 2004, at least. http://www.greencarcongress.com/images/2007/05/03/ hybrid_sales_apr07_1.png

Re:I want a plug-in hybrid.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Why would someone design a car simply for that trip?

I'm not looking for a car DESIGNED for that particular 250 mile each-way trip. I'm looking for a car CAPABLE of that particular trip.

However, like the EPA emissions test cycles, this is a real usage pattern, with a mix of types of travel that puts a load on power train and charge control performance that must be met to have a practical vehicle.

It's also likely to be a common cycle: While my particular trip is Silicon Valley to Antelope Valley, its characteristics are virtually identical to trips from Silicon Valley to:
  - Reno via Donner Pass,
  - Carson City via Carson Pass and Echo Summit, or
  - Minden/Gardnerville via Carson Pass, Echo Summit, and the Geiger Grade.
Trips from Silicon Valley to the skiing areas around South Lake Tahoe and Stateline are a nearly complete subset of the Carson City / Minden / Gardnverville trips (cutting off only a few miles of downslope at the end.) Similarly with Reno vs. the (north) Lake Tahoe and Incline Village areas.

There are a LOT of people who make these trips quite regularly, with a load of recreation gear (or gambling money B-) ). (Try it during the winter skiing season, summer camping season, or any three-day holiday and count the cars.) Ordinary gasoline vehicles - SUVs, town cars, compacts, and pickup trucks - can all make them just fine, even in bad weather, on less than a tank of gas each way (and with a safety margin for traffic jams, chain-up lines, and getting stuck in snowstorms on a summit overnight). A plug-in hybrid should be able to do the same, with no penalties on performance, safety, travel time, comfort, or extra fuel stops. (And it should be able to do so with the sort of fuel efficiency improvements that hybrids are noted for, thanks to regeneration on the long downslopes.) If it can't manage this it isn't a viable replacement car for, not just one of the largest urban markets, but the one with the highest concentration of politically-correct tree-hugging early-adopters with massive disposable incomes.

If it CAN hack it, at a reasonable price, it can handle the driving cycles thoughout virtually all of the US. It should sell like hotcakes in the SF Bay Area, paying off the development costs quickly, then go on to take the rest of the country by storm.

So IMHO this trip would be an excellent target for automotive engineers to shoot for in their plug-in hybrid designs.

Re:unsprung weight won't stop it

[AaronW]

I would think it would be simpler. After all, most (if not all) diesel locomotives have been hybrid for the last 50 years. They have a diesel engine that drives a generator and use an electric motor to power the wheels. By doing this, they completely eliminate the transmission and are able to provide tremendous torque, even at 0RPM, and there's no clutch or transmission to wear out. I still think a single, or possibly dual motors would be better than one in each wheel, just because it will be cheaper. Also, it might still be advantageous to have a transmission, though it would likely need far fewer gears, since it could keep the motor in its optimal range for providing high torque when accelerating yet keep the speed of the motor down when running at highway speeds. I would think such a transmission might be a lot simpler than a conventional 18 gear one.

Also, having a single motor means a lot less duplication for things like the inverter, cooling, etc.

Re:Conservation alternative

[nexuspal]

"even if every single American nuclear power plant had a Three mile Island style meltdown all in the same year",

Do you know what happens in a Three mile Island meltdown? The core becomes so hot that it literally melts down through the earth. As it goes deeper and deeper, steam shoots out of the ground all around the power plant. Keep in mind this is radioactive steam that would kill you if you were to be in contact with it. This is for a radius of miles, not close in... I think the environment would cry a lot more if it was saturated with life killing doses of radiation for the next 10,000 years...

Here's a quote from a Time article outlining this phenonoman
"Though the accident was a type of core meltdown, the ultimate nuclear power nightmare, U.S. experts also called it a burnup. Meltdowns technically occur in reactors containing pools of water. When the water boils away, the molten core sinks into the earth in the so-called China syndrome, a term used by scientists, and popularized by the 1979 movie of the same name, that mordantly suggests that the radioactive mass might plunge all the way through the earth. The Chernobyl plant had no such pool, by contrast, and engineers expect the reactor to be consumed by intense heat."
article

Ugh

[Cheezymadman]

When will they wise up and use my idea for a wind-powered car?

You see, you replace the engine with a turbine, and that turbine charges a battery. All you do is charge the battery the first time, and that starts you going. when the wind flows through the turbine, it charges the battery, keeping you going.

It's brilliant! Really!

Re:Conservation alternative

[notamisfit]

That's a meltdown, all right, but Three Mile Island was a joke by comparison. There was some core melting, but it never left the containment vessel. I think the total radiation released to the atmosphere was something like 20 curies of iodine (1 curie will give a radiation dose of ~1 REM from a distance of 1 meter. Radiation doses lower than 5 REM per year are thought not to cause any significant risk of cancer, and radiation poisoning levels are in hundreds of REM. Just for comparison.)

I operated pressurized water reactors when I was in the US Navy, and I'm convinced that a properly trained staff is more than capable of safely handling any potential incident involving one. While TMI and Chernobyl were disasters, the lessons learned are carried on.

Re:"Smart Chips" In These Batteries Too

[Linagee]

Google for "Smart Battery Specification" (SBS). It's real. I've seen it in action. (Dell D600 laptop.)

Re:unsprung weight won't stop it

[Firethorn]

What the heck do you think it takes to 'keep up' on the highway? I travel on the highway all the time, and I only have a smidge over a hundred horsepower.

It looks like you're still thinking in terms of gasoline engines. An electric engine is different than an internal combustion engine. While a car's horsepower is rated in terms of maximum power, an electric is rated in terms of sustained power. It's quite possible to drive an electric motor to 300% of it's rated maximum for a short period of time. For the most part, this rating is only limited by the motor's cooling. Increase the cooling through forced ventilation or other cooling and you increase the capacity.

From my research, due to the efficiencies and torque range of electric motors most conversion sites(from gasoline to electric) say that you only need 1/3 to 1/2 the horsepower for similar performance.

So a 300hp electric could act like a 900hp electric for about 10 seconds. Plenty of power to pass even a number of vehicles on the highway, not to mention get any highway patrol real interested in talking with you...

Re:What the Japanese don't understand

[Blkdeath]

...Japanese companies face little of this burden in Japan, where the government covers retirees' health care and pays a bigger share of workers' pensions.

{shaking head} This is all well and good, except that most of Toyota's North American product is produced in Cambridge, ON, the NUMA plant in California and their Texas manufacturing facilities. They're expecting to have 100% "Toyota" production for North America IN North America by about 2010.

The domestic problems are more systemic than health care costs. Union strife, inefficient plants, plant sprawl, poor designs, overburdened support (warranty) costs due to poor initial quality, etc. Much of the domestic product is also produced in foreign countries (Mexico, South Africa, South Korea) which, again, provides extremely cheap labour, virtually no health care overhead and massive tax benefits in the hosting third world nations.

It goes deeper even into the smaller details. Toyota actively encourages a healthier lifestyle for their workers, requiring the Cambridge employees to maintain a membership (free, BTW) for themselves and their family, to the on-site health club. They provide healthy, balanced meals in the cafeteria. Domestic plants, by contrast, offer the likes of pizza, fried foods, etc. in their cafeterias and the exersize plans include the long walk to the bar across the road for beer and wings on lunch break.

Because domestic workers, by and large, do one thing and one thing only (weld door seams, install windshields, etc.) for years on end, and because of the environment in which they work, they have no real pride of ownership in their product. In a Japanese run plant, after a certain number of years each and every employee can claim to have built an entire car - every single component assembled. They work in teams, they get a regular change of scenery so there's less doldrum, less stress, and better productivity.

Domestic workers are chastised for stopping the production line. Their profitability is measured in dollars/minute of line time. Japanese product workers are encouraged to stop the line if they spot a defect. As I said; pride of ownership.

Domestic workers have "pride" in domestic products under a union and propaganda inspired sense of self preservation, but it's a false notion. I live near, and for several years lived and worked in a plant town and saw the Good 'Ol Boys driving around with their "Buy Domestic - Save Our Jobs" plate frames on their vehicles. Many (most) of which were built in third world countries for dollars a day!

Except that he figured his car to be totaled for sure a friend of mine was considering buying one and installing it on the plate of his Corolla. 100% assembled by Ontario born and bred workers in Cambridge!